I have had a family emergency and have been away for over a week and will not be back for several more days.

Another morning shot.

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I bought home three images to post. However when I viewed them on my iBook they looked terrible; the contrast and the grain had jumped a lot. I’ll post one anyway; this is what I hate about online images, you never know what they look like on anyone’s computer screen.

This is an image from 1970s; it was taken in Carroll Gardens/Red Hook on the other side of BQE. I am no longer sure what street since I would walk for miles.

On my Conpaq at work the image did not look as bad as on the iBook.

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[I will, probably this weekend, rewrite this. That I love Friedlander and Evans will not change, I will try to make it more coherent.]

Seeing the Lee Friedlander show at SFMOMA had me thinking about Walker Evans. I love many photographers: Weston, Abbott, Lang, Adams, Smith, Atget, Frank, the Bechers and Gibson for a short list. However the first photographer I wanted to absorb was Walker Evans.

I have known Friedlander’s work since the early ‘70’s; He like Evans struck a deep cord in me, but even deeper than Evans.

So why did seeing Friedlander bring Walker Evans to mind? First, there was picture Evans in a hospital bed taken by Friedlander; second, because I believe Friedlander grew out of Evans. Friedlander did not try to become a second Evans but rather pulled, squeezed and twisted, and stretched as you would clay what he seen in Evans. When you look at Friedlander’s work you sense that after absorbing Evan’s work his courage and creativity was not willing to let him become an Evans Junior but rather to grow from this fertile ground into something new and beautiful.

The humor in Friedlander’s photography is extensive and found in almost all groupings; self-portraits, reflections, signs, landscapes and urban-scapes. The nudes are the only grouping I do not remember seeing humor; even the portraits of working people some gentle humor can be seen in the close-ups of telemarketers. These portraits of working people were my biggest surprised; I had not realized he had done this work.

However what most impressed me was his ability to create multiple images in a single photograph using reflections or TVs and windows or various objects slashing across the picture breaking the picture into several images: a sign post, a door frame covering a man’s face and a woman’s leg and the reflection of a man out of the door frame. Friedlander does not break the rules of compositions but invents new rules; he is a Charlie Parker/John Coltrane of photography.

The highlight was seeing his prints; not images in a book but actual prints. Lately I have been printing 11×14, 16×20 and 20×26, seeing the beautiful rich prints of Friedlander reminded me how much more beautiful a silver 8×10 print is than digital prints. The glass covering the prints though drove me crazy; I wanted to take the prints off the wall to see past the glare into the shadow detail.

It is thrilling to see the prints of great photographers.

I had forgotten for years about the images of rooms many with TVs sets. I had forgotten them, but had not lost their impact, and with this show the memory of them came back. Recently, I saw a photograph by a friend of a radiator that looked like knuckles. It was a good shot. Looking at the image an idea I had 30 years ago after seeing Friedlander’s rooms that you should be able to find good images in a single room. What I have been doing in Brooklyn is a scaled up version of this idea; photographing the same Brooklyn streets over and over in different lighting and weather conditions.

The difficulty for me is how to absorb Friedlander and not become a Friedlander clone. He has done so much so well. It is difficult to know where to go, what to do; how to accept what he has done but grow in new directions.

Two other shows at SFMOMA
An-My Le: Small Wars and Gabriele Basilio: From San Francisco

I was not impressed with Basilio images; I found them boring and the printing sloppy; the frames were horrible casting a shadow on the top of the images. I have seen much more interesting urban landscapes of San Francisco done as paintings and photographs: Linda Grebmeier, or Christine Hanlon.

An-My Le: Small Wars
I liked Le’s Small Wars especially the Vietnam War Re-enactments. Forty years ago Chris Howard and I covered for the NY Times Long Island Section people who RV’ed and people who square danced; many people do both. While I was looking at her images I was remembered these groups.The participants of the re-enactments reminded of the square dancing RV-ers.

I’ve a family problem so I will not be here until at least Sunday.

RED HOOK STORIES
By Maureen McNeil
Photographs by Janet Neuhauser

I saw some photographs taken in the 1980’s of Red Hook and the people in the neighborhood taken by Janet Neuhauser. I liked them; many were exceptional especially of people. Getting shots of people is something I have found very difficult - I do not get close enough. Its interesting to see the difference in Brooklyn neighborhoods from 1980’s.

I have not read the book so I can not discuss the stories. I will order the book next week and try to see the show again tomorrow when it less crowded.

The images were obvious shot with film; you could see the beautiful grain. They were printed on archival inkjet paper; I kept wondering how they would look printed on fiber. No prices were posted.

Go see the show; Red hook is easy to get to by taking the water taxi.

My right hand is burnt from Dektol; D-76 effects me somewhat BUT Dektol does a major redness/burning, but I love printing.

I read an interesting post on BackReAction several days ago on Models and Theories, you do not need to be a Physicist or Mathematician to appreciate it.

A while back I complained about James Baldwin to a friend. She and I went to Cornell together; she recommend reading Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. She uses it in a course she teaches. She was right; it is very good. I also recommend it.

I have been listen to a Berkeley chem course taught by Kubinec. Two statements surprised me; one I should have known but did not think about it, the other I am still trying to understand.

First, have I known since around 1962 that elections will produce a inference pattern. I’ve known since then that electrons were looked upon as both waves and particles - in fact this duality was why I thought about physics as a major. What did not dawn on me was that this meant that MATTER was being added or destroyed. Its so amazingly beautiful.

Secondly, electron spin as measured as +1/2 or -1/2. Ok, but then he says spin up is considered time degree of freedom 1 and spin down is considered time degree of freedom 2. I do not see how time suddenly is involved - how did spin and time become entwined?; it is probably something simple that I am overlooking. He then goes on to talk about mobius strips and 720 degrees rotation which I understand.

I am doing all this rushing around, because CERN will soon produce exciting results and I want to have some understanding. This is a very exciting time. PLUS there are so many Mathematicians and Physicists writing about their work and ideas on the www; even semi-geeks can come away with some understanding.

I need to reorganize my web page, from purely genealogy to some genealogy and lots of photography. Many decisions to make on presentation, but that appeals to my inner geekiness. I may not be writing C but even CSS and Flash have some geekiness.

These are a series of essays by Marcus du Sautoy on the relationship of music and maths that ran on BBC.
Warning for most of us each essay will take several listenings. BTW he is also a trumpter! [I studied trumpet through grade school and high school.] The summaries are from the BBC site:

31 March
Counter-culture
Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy looks at rhythmic complexities in Steve Reich, Messiaen, Ewe music from Ghana and a piece lasting 1,000 years.

1 April
The Music of the Spheres
He examines Pythagoras’ theories about the harmonious world, the thorny issue of temperament and why so many cultures divide the scale into 12 notes.

2 April
Theme and Variations
He reveals the symmetry in Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the maths behind bell-ringing and Mozart’s obsession with numbers.

3 April
Composing with Numbers
He looks at Schoenberg’s rectangles, Xenakis’ cubes and Messiaen’s Mongean shuffle, and reveals that there is music in maths.

A friend, Stuart, talked about a class he took: shooting a roll a day. I thought about it and decided to do it for a month - at least. Its for discipline and eye. Its just not the shooting; I need to develop the film and print every frame, probably 5×7 or 4×5 on plastic and then stick them up somewhere and look at what I’ve done.

It should be interesting.

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